


kanerva

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Beaches, Childhood, Children, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Light Angst, Sea, Slice of Life, Swimming, can you tell I've never lived more than a couple kms from the sea yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28618791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: She never became faster than her mother. Her mother with the tears in her eyes that she would not shed, with silver hair, with golden hair, with it all caught up together. Celebrían has some of her mother’s gold in her silver hair, but it’s not enough for anyone to notice unless they’re looking for it. Sometimes it might flash out in the light, and you could call it a trick of the sun, even though it isn’t.And her children have their father’s black hair, black as night, but with some strands of silver in it like shooting stars when they run. They have caught some gold in their hair, a trick of the sun, you could say. (You could lie.)‘Elladan! Elrohir!’ she calls down the beach. She stands and slips her shirt back on. It is white linen with white stars, almost invisible along the neck, stitched there by Elrohir. She wears white crotched shorts she’s had for ninety years now. She counts years, maybe because Elrond does. She doesn’t remember when she started.Her children race back to her, wet from the sea, sand clinging to their skin. She lifts Elladan first to her with one arm and then Elrohir after. Their hair smells of the sea. Their skin is salty when she kisses them.
Relationships: Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel
Kudos: 15





	kanerva

Celebrían stirs when the water touches her ankle. The tide is coming in along the strip of grey sand. Soon it will reach the rocks that slide towards it from beneath the pine trees. Then the strip of sand will become nothing, all of it will be covered, and the waves will search the rocks for company. 

Celebrían sits up from where she was lying in the warm sand, watching her children. The two of them race each other up and down the shore, over the sand, in the water. They fall and get up without a sound and run on without a moment to recover. 

Earlier she raced with them, but she is still faster, and she thought they might tire of always being caught. Or maybe that was just her. She ran until her feet were calloused, bruised, blistered, until they bled, when she was a child. She felt she must. 

She ran until she was faster than her father, her father who she takes after, with his silver hair flashing in the light, like hers. 

She never became faster than her mother. Her mother with the tears in her eyes that she would not shed, with silver hair, with golden hair, with it all caught up together. Celebrían has some of her mother’s gold in her silver hair, but it’s not enough for anyone to notice unless they’re looking for it. Sometimes it might flash out in the light, and you could call it a trick of the sun, even though it isn’t. 

And her children have their father’s black hair, black as night, but with some strands of silver in it like shooting stars when they run. They have caught some gold in their hair, a trick of the sun, you could say. (You could lie.) 

‘Elladan! Elrohir!’ she calls down the beach. She stands and slips her shirt back on. It is white linen with white stars, almost invisible along the neck, stitched there by Elrohir. She wears white crotched shorts she’s had for ninety years now. She counts years, maybe because Elrond does. She doesn’t remember when she started. 

Her children race back to her, wet from the sea, sand clinging to their skin. She lifts Elladan first to her with one arm and then Elrohir after. Their hair smells of the sea. Their skin is salty when she kisses them. 

‘Your father will worry,’ she says, ‘of you being in the sun too long.’ 

Elrohir presses his cheek to her shoulder. 

‘I’m tired anyway.’ 

Celebrían carries them back along the beach, walking barefoot, careful not to cut her feet on a sharp stone. She is careful not to fall with the children in her arms. She leaves the sand and follows the path up through the woods, dirt and covered with softened white pine needles, orange and brown in the summer shadows. 

The woods end on a soft field where heather and wild strawberries grow. There are rocks here too, long slabs of granite among the sweeping grass. Elrond sits on one with her father. Elrond’s hair whispers over his face. He stands when she draws near and takes Elladan into his arms. 

‘Did you swim much, my love?’ he asks. 

‘Yes.’ Elladan presses his face against Elrond’s face. He falls asleep immediately. 

Celebrían switches Elrohir from her hip to cradling him in her arms. He is falling asleep also, with the sand still glittering like broken gems on his legs. She leads them up the path to Círdan’s house and lays Elrohir down on the porch swing, shaded by the roof. She kneels beside the swing and strokes his damp hair off his face. He does not wake. He has three silver eyelashes on his right eye and twelve on the left. She counts them again. She counts his freckles – three on his face, fifteen on his left arm. He lies on his right arm. She kisses him. 

Elrond slips Elladan down beside Elrohir. The swing’s cushion darkens as the water in their hair seeps into the tightly woven grey cloth. Elrond slips inside. She hears him pour water from a pitcher to a glass. She can see the water tumbling down in her mind, how the sun’s light throws sudden colours, silver the brightest. 

She does not get up. She watches her children sleeping. 

Her children. 

She thinks of the wording of it all. How Elrond says we have two children. How Elrond says I have two children. How she says we have two children. How she says I have two children. 

Is it so possessive? Is it really terrible to say they are mine when the mine is love that means she will never leave them? Elrond will never leave them. 

She looks over her shoulder at her father. He has watched her watch them in silence. She turns her face away. She traces the gentle curve of Elladan’s cheek and the little mountain peaks of Elrohir’s lips. 

Elrond hands her a glass of water. She takes it and drinks all of it, all at once, so he takes it back inside empty, and she hears the water pour again. 

Círdan comes out onto the porch and watches the blue water rising in the bay. He leans against the railing near the strung up sea glass that sometimes catches light and casts colour down onto the wooden floor. Círdan’s houses last for a few centuries, and then he builds a new one again. 

Círdan rests his hand on Celebrían’s shoulder. His calloused fingers are soft against her bare skin. She can remember when she was small enough that he could hold her up with just one hand. She turns her head to kiss his fingers.

He was her teacher, and she his apprentice. He taught her to build ships large enough to carry 500 tons, merchant ships. But she always liked best the small boats for rivers where the water could get low and the river banks narrow. 

‘They are perfect,’ Círdan says. His hair, white as the moon in the dark of December, brushes against her arm as he bends to stroke her children’s hair. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘We should start dinner,’ Círdan says, and he and Celeborn go inside together. 

Celebrían kneels still beside the swing and rocks it with one hand. She touches her children’s damp hair and the sand now dry on their legs. The water climbs high in the bay. Beyond the curve of this bay lies another one, a deeper one, with many ships. Some of them she helped build. She will show them tomorrow. 

Elrond hands her the glass, full again with water. She drinks from it three swallows and hands it back to him. He drinks the rest. Sunlight falls through a piece of green glass over Elrohir’s arm. She kisses it, and her hair swallows the light. She leans back, and the green shifts to Elladan’s hand as Celebrían rocks the swing.


End file.
